the triple ray which descends from His eternity upon our transitory existence.  We cannot therefore seriously admit that God of the pure reason, separated from the God of the conscience and of the heart.  Still let us endeavor to make this concession, for argument’s sake, to our philosopher.  Let us suppose that the reason has a God to itself, a God for the metaphysicians who is not the God of the vulgar.  Before we immolate upon His altar the conscience and the heart, it is worth our while to examine whether the statue of the God of the reason rests upon a solid pedestal.  Here are the theses which are proposed to us:  “It is impossible for our feelings to supply any light for science.  Truth may be gloomy, and despair may gain its cause.  Virtue may be wrong, and immorality may be the true.  Reason alone judges of that which is.”  I answer:  Human nature has always eagerly followed after happiness.  Human nature has always acknowledged, even while violating it, a rule of duty.  The heart is not an accident, the conscience is not a prejudice:  they are, and by the same right as the reason, constituent elements of our spiritual existence.  If there exist an irreconcilable antagonism between science and life; if the heart, in its fundamental and universal aspirations, is the victim of an illusion, if the conscience in its clearest admonitions is only a teacher of error, what is our position?  In what I am now saying, Gentlemen, I am not appealing to your feelings; the business is to follow, with calm attention, a piece of exact reasoning.  If the heart deceives us, if the voice of duty leads us astray, the disorder is at the very core of our being; our nature is ill constructed.  If our nature is ill constructed, what warrants to us our reason?  Nothing.  What assures us that our axioms are good, and that our reasonings have any value?  Nothing.  The life of the soul cannot be arbitrarily cloven in twain; it must be held for good in all its constituent elements, or enveloped wholly and entirely in the shades of doubt.  If the heart and conscience deceive us, then reason may lead us astray, and the very idea of truth disappears.  God is the light of the spiritual world.  We prove His existence by showing that without Him all returns to darkness.  This demonstration is as good as another.

FOOTNOTES: 

[26] Christian States have given the force of law to institutions, such, for instance, as monogamy, which date their origin from the Gospel records.  Here we have the normal development of civilization:  religious faith enlightens the general conscience, and reveals to it the true conditions of social progress.  In this order of things, it is not a question of beliefs, but of acts imposed in the name of the interests of society.  The state may take account of the religious beliefs of its subjects, and enter into such relations as may seem to it convenient with the ecclesiastical authorities:  this is the basis